


fast forward to eighteen (we are more than lovers)

by wafflesofdoom



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 07:16:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15746916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflesofdoom/pseuds/wafflesofdoom
Summary: it hadalwaysbeen aaron and robert.it was a fact of life, really. the sky was blue, aaron’s mum was loveably useless at being a mum, emmerdale was boring, and it was aaron and robert against the world.or, a childhood best friends to lovers au.





	fast forward to eighteen (we are more than lovers)

It had always been Aaron and Robert, really. From the day Aaron had moved to the village, it had been Robert and Aaron against the world, for better or worse. They caused havoc, as kids, Robert two years older, and not the slightest bit wiser than his younger friend, Aaron having lost count of the amount of times they’d been collared by Jack, or Diane, or Chas, the two of them up to no good.

Summers in Emmerdale were long, and boring, and Aaron and Robert were always bored from about week two, ready to mess about on their rickety old bicycles, getting in under everyones feet.

This summer had been no different, really.

Not much had changed, over the years. The only thing that had changed between now, and then, was the fact Robert had a car now, a battered up old Ford Fiesta that Jack had reluctantly bought him, more to get Robert out from under his feet than anything else, but it meant that they could skive off on adventures - like they were now.

Aaron had swiped a few beers, and a couple of packets of crisps from the pub, tucking them inside his hoodie before he’d skulked out the back door, trying to avoid his mums watchful eye. They’d had a fun conversation a few weeks ago about Aaron taking stock from the pub when he was still underage, and Aaron didn’t fancy redoing that one.

“It’s fucking cold,” Robert grumbled, hunched over himself as they sat on the bonnet of his car, music playing tinnily from Robert’s mobile, some crap pop tune Aaron vaguely recognised.

“You wouldn’t be cold if you’d brought a jacket,” Aaron pointed out, shoving a handful of crisps into his mouth, less than gracefully.

“You sound like Diane,” Robert rolled his eyes, brushing a piece of invisible lint from his shirt, the material perfectly ironed, and rolled to his elbows - a Robert Sugden signature, if ever there was one. Robert was renowned for dressing well, now he was in sixth form and he didn’t have to wear the stuffy Hotten Academy uniform.

Aaron liked to tell his best friend he dressed like a pompous twat, but that particular comment never went over well. Robert - well, he’d always liked to impress people, and Aaron would never ever tell him this, but he was an impressive guy - all long legs, and blond hair, and freckles he knew for a fact there was graffiti about in the sixth form girls bathrooms.

He was known for being fairly obnoxious, too, but Aaron knew the real Robert - the one who hid under the thirty layers of sarcasm and snark, the Robert who’d punched David Hodges’ lights out when he’d dared to say anything about Matty, when he’d started to transition the previous year. The Robert who was insecure, at heart, desperate to please a dad who always seemed to find something wrong in everything Robert did.

(How Jack could find a way to be mad about straight A*’s when Robert did his GCSES, Aaron would never understand.)

The Robert who’d admitted he liked boys, too, a few months after Aaron had come out, spurred on by Aaron’s own coming out to test the waters of his own sexuality, the two of them going to Hotten’s one and only gay bar after Aaron’s spectacularly messy breakup with Jackson, Robert kissing a nameless brunette lad in the corner, while Aaron watched on, equal parts proud and jealous.

Jealous.

Aaron had tried to swallow it all, he had - he’d never intended to be jealous of anyone Robert got with. It would be a pretty exhausting habit, considering how many people Robert actually got with - but here he was, seventeen and a half, and jealous of the fact Robert had gotten a hand-job in a nightclub bathroom from one of the lads on the school rugby team.

He’d been jealous of Chrissie, too, when Robert had gone out with her. It had all gone spectacularly tits up, in the end, but that had been Robert’s fault (though, Aaron had been the first to call her annoying sister a slapper when she’d tried to pick a fight with Robert in the schoolyard, wearing the decaying remains of a dead fox, by the look of it.)

Robert might have been a twat, but he was Aaron’s best friend, and that meant he had Robert’s back - whether Robert was in the right, or now.

It had always been Aaron and Robert.

It was a fact of life, really. The sky was blue, Aaron’s mum was loveably useless at being a mum, Emmerdale was boring, and it was Aaron and Robert against the world. Those were all the guarantees Aaron had in life.

An over-dramatic shiver from Robert drew Aaron’s attention.

“You’re a child,” he mumbled, shrugging off his hoodie, passing it over to his best friend. “If I get cold, you’re giving it back - twat.”

Robert flashed him a grin, pulling the soft material over his arms, zipping it to his chin. Aaron was nearly certain Robert had bought him the hoodie, if he was honest, spending his first measly weeks wages from the newsagent in town on the two of them - takeaway pizza, a trip to the cinema, and a new hoodie for Aaron.

Aaron leaned back on his elbows, gaze fixed on the distant horizon. “Do you ever think about how the world is so much bigger than Emmerdale?” he asked.

“Sometimes.” Robert hummed, leaning back so his shoulder was bumping against Aaron’s. “But I wouldn’t change any of it, you know. Emmerdale’s not that bad, not when I’ve got you.”

“Sap.”

They lapsed into silence for a few minutes, before Robert spoke again.

“Do you believe in love?”

Aaron turned his head, raising an eyebrow at Robert’s question. “Where did that come from?”

“I don’t know,” Robert shrugged, sitting forward so he could lean his elbows on his knees, hunched over. “I was just thinking about it. Do you still believe in love, after Jackson and everything?”

Aaron was quiet for a second, thinking. “I do, I think,” he said. “It’d a bit shit not too, wouldn’t it?”

“But even - even after how much it hurt, after Jackson?” Robert asked, his brow furrowed, as though the whole topic was majorly confusing for him. Other people would say it was, given his history - Robert Sugden, the great philanderer, the boy who’d never loved anyone before in his life.

Aaron knew better. Aaron - well, he’d been the one to hold Robert when he’d cried his heart out about Katie, and Tom - and Chrissie. Just because Robert never let anyone see how much he cared, didn’t mean he didn’t care at all.

Aaron raised an eyebrow. “It’s not as if you’ve never been hurt, has it?”

“I’ve never been in love though, have I?”

“You haven’t?”

“Maybe - with Katie, yeah,” Robert shrugged off the memories of his ex-girlfriend, the girl who had a ring on her finger now, and a life with Andy. “But not proper love, the kind you see in films. The kind of love that makes you want to try - I’ve never had that.”

The kind of love that made you want to try.

Aaron wasn’t sure if he’d ever had that, either. Jackson had been the kind of love that had felt all consuming, the kind of love Aaron wasn’t sure he’d ever get over, until he did - and Ed, well, Aaron wasn’t so sure it had ever been love at all.

“Maybe it’s time to stop shagging and running, then,” Aaron grinned, shoving at Robert’s side.

“Haha,” Robert rolled his eyes, reaching for a handful of crisps. “I dunno, I just feel like maybe I’m missing out, or summat.”

Aaron shrugged. “I don’t think you’re missing out on anything,” he said. “You’re nineteen, Robert.”

“Don’t remind me,” Robert pulled a face. He’d been having a crisis, since his birthday in April, about being in his last year of being a teenager, and it was driving Aaron bloody mental, if he was honest.

“You’re an idiot,” Aaron said, checking his phone. “We’d best go, Vic’s just texted me again. Apparently she’s going to very graphically murder us both if we don’t get there on time.”

Robert sighed, sliding off the bonnet. “I don’t want to go to this party.”

“You love Matty, and its an important day for him.”

“I do,” Robert confirmed, rooting for his keys. “But every moment I have to be in the company of Pete Barton, a part of my soul dies.”

Aaron rolled his eyes, sliding into the passenger seat of Robert’s car. “He’s not that bad, you know,” he said, clicking his seatbelt into place, already messing with the radio. That was the deal they had going was that Robert drove, and Aaron was in charge of the music.

“He’s a brainless idiot,” Robert muttered in response.

Aaron settled back in his seat, cranking up the volume. “And you’re an asshole. What’s new?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The bass was thumping under Aaron’s feet, and he was drunk - not drunk enough that he didn’t know what he was doing, but drunk enough that he was shamelessly checking Robert out, admiring the curve of his best friends arse in his jeans.

“You’re obvious, you,” Matty grinned, slinging an arm around Aaron’s shoulders, a bottle of vodka. If Matty knew how to do anything, it was throw a banger of a house party.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You could just tell him, you know,” Matty said, glancing over toward Robert. “He feels the same.”

“And you know that how?” Aaron raised an eyebrow, glancing at his friend. Matty liked to think he was all knowing, but considering he hadn’t managed to ask Victoria out yet, despite her making moon eyes at him every single day in assembly, he didn’t really trust his opinion.

“It’s always been you and him against the world,” Matty shrugged. “Everyone knows it. You and Robert, it makes sense, innit?”

“So does you and Vic,” Aaron countered, knowing he’d played his trump card when Matty slapped him on the back, easing his way back into the throng of people at the party. The entirety of Hotten Academy must have been crammed into the Barton’s front room, Aaron spotting people from two years below them huddled in the kitchen, trying to look as if they belonged.

Sometimes, Aaron was glad he was nearly on the other side of his teenage years.

“Come with me.”

Aaron looked up to see Robert standing above him, holding out a hand for Aaron to take. “You what?”

“Come with me,” Robert rolled his eyes, grabbing Aaron’s hand and tugging him up off the couch, and into the quieter, supposedly off-limits hallway, tugging Aaron toward the stairs.

“What are you doing?” Aaron couldn’t help but laugh breathlessly, Robert pinning him against the wall.

“What I should have done earlier at the quarry,” Robert replied, pressing his lips to Aaron’s before Aaron could reply, kissing him with the kind of intensity he could feel right down to toes, Robert’s hands on his waist, keeping him close.

It was the kind of kiss Aaron had dreamed off, watching Robert snog Chrissie White around the back of the school gym, Robert’s hands up her school skirt. Except - except it was happening to Aaron now, he was the one Robert was snogging for all he was worth.

“What are you doing?” Aaron asked, pulling back slightly. Robert was red in the cheeks, and Aaron wasn’t sure if it was because of the alcohol, or the lack of oxygen - either way, he looked perfectly mused, blond hair a little ruffled, Aaron’s hoodie long since discarded, the top few buttons of his button up shirt undone.

“You make me want to try,” Robert said, kissing Aaron again, as if he couldn’t get enough. “That’s what I should have told you, you make me want to try. You - you’re my best friend, and I want ya, Aaron.”

Aaron wanted to laugh. Or yell. Or pinch himself, maybe.

“Its a fact of life, eh?” Robert continued, grinning. “The sky is blue, my dad is the worst, Emmerdale is boring - and it’s me and you against the world.”

Aaron couldn’t help but laugh now, a delighted giggle that sounded wildly out of place coming out of his mouth. “What has brought this on?”

“Decided it was time I took a chance on this,” Robert said, leaning in and kissing Aaron again, Aaron responding this time, knotting his fingers in Robert’s hair, tugging a little harder than necessary when Robert was slow to open his mouth, tongue slack against Aaron’s.

“However much I’m enjoying this, I’m not having sex with you in Ross Barton’s bed,” Aaron said, Robert’s hands somehow already down the back of his jeans as he spoke, his own cheeks matching Robert’s now.

Robert pulled a face. “We’d catch something.”

“So………”

Robert looked as though he was trying to make a decision, for a second. “I’ll race you back to mine, then.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So here’s the thing.

Aaron knew a few facts of life. The sky was blue, his mum was a bit useless, Emmerdale was boring, and it was him and Robert against the world.

And now - well, he had another few facts of life to add to the list.

Sex with Robert was good. There was none of that awkwardness Aaron had felt, his first times with other boyfriends - they’d laughed, and kissed, and it had probably been the best night of Aaron’s life, the two of them curled under Robert’s duvet, whispering and kissing and talking some more - long enough that the sun started to seep through Robert’s curtains, signalling a new morning.

Symbolic, really, if you believed in that sort of thing.

The sky was blue. Golden, if you were up early enough to see it rise over the green fields of Emmerdale, and pink if you stayed out late enough to watch it set again, pink and orange over the rolling Yorkshire hills Aaron called home.

His mum was a bit useless. She’d not always been around, but she tried to make up for it now - with slightly burnt lasagnes, and more hugs than strictly necessary.

Emmerdale was boring. That one - well, there was nothing more too it, really.

And it was him and Robert against the world.

Always.

In every conceivable way.

Aaron was okay with that.


End file.
